in asking our upstairs neighbour to move their pram?

Our upstairs neighbours share a communal hall way with us and have been using it to store their pram since their son was born. We were quite sympathetic for the first six months or so. After that we politely mentioned it was a problem for us as it was blocking the hallway but they said they had nowhere else to store it.

We let it rest but for the last few months it's been getting slightly wearing as he is now 20 months old and there is no sign of them moving on to a fold up model. We raised it couple of times over the summer, basically asking how much longer they would need it and they were non-committal.

So we asked them if they would mind us storing our bikes there occasionally. They said they wouldn't object and so on Thursday night my husband moved the bikes up in anticipation of going for a bike ride or two over the weekend.

We made sure they could still get their pram in and out but they still went completely berserk. She knocked on the door to ask me to move them and lost it when I said "no - we had agreed this up front". Her husband has also got quite angry and stated that they should have extra rights over the hallway than us.

I can't believe the way they are acting (stomping round upstairs, shouting at me and my husband when we've seen them, even though the bikes are now back in our flat) but not having children I can't judge whether it is really is an ordeal to either get a fold up pram, as we have asked, or alternatively build a shed and store their pram in the front yard. I'm sure all my nephew and nieces (six of them) were using fold up buggies by this age but they insist that they are not suitable for a 20 month old. Am I being really unreasonable? When should they be able to move on to a fold up model? And what does everyone else do when their kids get to this kind of age?

It's a converted house with two flats, us and them. We both own. Under the terms of the lease the communal area shouldn't be blocked. We're not saying they have to get rid of it but that they can't store it in the hall anymore. Either in their own flat or outside in a shed are both fine with us.

Have they got a car outside? I had this happen and finally the downstairs people asked me to move my pram so i put it in my car to store it. Yes, a bit more of a bother but I certainly didn't go all 'think of the baaaaaby' about it.I could see it was slightly irritating being there and that there had to be a time limit on goodwill from neighbours. 18 months is a good limit.

thesecondcoming, Completely understand that it's not going to be around for ever, but they just won't give any idea of when they will get rid of it. As I say, don't really care what pram they have but don't want it stored in the hall anymore. I'd be a bit more relaxed if they let us use it to store our things, after all fair's fair, but they won't. Seems to be one rule for them and another for us.

yanbu at all. they sound like a nightmare. My mum and dad have a lockable plastic outdoor storage bunker type thing that they keep spare buggies and garden toys in at their house. They don't take much room up, and don't cost much, your neighbours should get one of those, or a folding buggy, or rearrange a room inside the flat and take it up there with them.

We lived in a first floor flat with no lift till dd was 2, it was a pita bumping the buggy up and down a flight of stairs every day, but hey that's life, and we would never have dreamed of leaving it in a communal area (would have got nicked where we lived anyway ).

franklymydear, Yes something that doesn't fold down but the seat moves around so it can face both ways. They didn't like the bikes as they were taking up space and blocking the hall, but as we keep saying, as far we're concerned, the pram is blocking the hall and, unlike our bikes which we had only intended to have out for the weekend, seems to be a permanent fixture.

I have lived in flats the whole time I've had kids.I deliberastly bought a small buggy from birth that could be folded down so that I wouldn't block the communal hallways with a massive pram. They should either store it folded in your hallway or take it upstairs.

In one flat I lived in you were not allowed to store things in the hallway due to fire restrictions.